


Illumination Rounds

by fortywinks (ballantine)



Series: A Brother In The War [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, On the Run, Road Trips, Slow Burn, Soldiers, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-07-12 18:59:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16001327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballantine/pseuds/fortywinks
Summary: Dean had never needed a life, not when he had a calling.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I'd say you probably need to read the first story in this series to understand this one, but you know... fuck it? I'm sure you can figure things out. 
> 
> All you really need to know is: 1) the supernatural is known to the public in a big way and 2) an armed force called the United States Hunt Command (USHC) was assembled to fight them, led in part by John Winchester. Shit hit the fan at the end of Breathing In, leaving John possessed by YED and Sam's abilities revealed to the USHC. Wonder of wonders, Dean decided to grab Sam and haul ass rather than turn his brother over to his higher ups. 
> 
> Oh, and Dean found out that Sam wanted to kiss him. But he's not thinking about that; there's a war on, c'mon, where are your priorities?
> 
> Title is lifted wholesale from the second section of Michael Herr's _Dispatches_ (which you should totally read).

I got to hate surprises, control freak at the crossroads, if you were one of those people who always thought they had to know what was coming next, the war could cream you.  
-Michael Herr, _Dispatches_

 

There's a Flying J travel plaza outside Balmorhea in West Texas that sits on the edge of the largest dead zone in North America.

It was once a standard truck stop – a 24/7 purveyor of fuel, fast food, and a surprisingly wide array of electronics in that one aisle on the far right. As sure as the internal combustion engine sits at the center of America's soul, this truck stop has seen all of life's major events: people have fucked, fought, died, and even given birth inside that cookie-cutter building designed by a creatively-frustrated architect based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Children of divorce have spent hours waiting in its vinyl diner booths as cross-country custody battles left them stranded. Fidgety drug runners used to arrange to casually bump into each other in its regularly-cleaned bathrooms. And every year, strangers came in from the road and gathered together to share a meal on Christmas Day, $12.99 roast dinner special with a stuffed potato buffet, and tip your waitress real good, it's Christmas goddamnit.

The travel plaza has changed since everything. A few shanties have sprouted up under what used to be the diesel pumps, and the Iron Skillet inside has been converted to a bar, bottles of liquor cluttering up the counter under franchise decorations that are now historical ephemera.

The towns around are mostly abandoned, just like the rest of the state. No one really knows what it's like further east down the freeway.

People live at the Balmorhea plaza now. It stands alone in the gathering darkness, a fluorescent bulwark that proudly proclaims to the howling masses of supernatural evil: humanity endures and is drinking dollar shots on Wednesday. It's Ladies Night, bring your girlfriends.

Sometimes furtive, hardbitten men and women with rifles slung over their shoulders will stop in for a drink or a meal and then disappear back into the wilds, never to be seen again. You do not, as a rule, talk to these people. No one who braves the dangers of the Texas dead zone is someone you want to associate with – heartbreak is plentiful enough in this world. No sense in inviting it in.

Life goes on.

Sometimes the freaks attack and the plaza goes into lockdown. And some day they will be overrun; everyone knows this is the inevitable fate of the Balmorhea Flying J. But until then, the spare hundred or so people living and working there will load their guns, put Billy Idol on the stereo, and fight. They are prepared for anything, they think.

Then one day, two brothers roll up to their door.


	2. Chapter 2

“I don't think it's a good idea to stop here,” Sam says. When Dean glances over, his eyes are roving skeptically over the compound. The tension that's occupied his face since Tucson is still front and center.

Dean kills the engine. “That genius brain of yours figure out a way to make cars run on something other than gasoline?”

The sign had been brief and to the point: _Last Gas For 700 Miles_. All Dean needed to know.

Sam's face reflects everything there is to see in the plaza – the shacks, the half-built solar array on the roof, the repurposed pumps and hoses. Dean watches his brother restrain himself, carefully fold away all his objections. He listens as Sam says with the same even, diplomatic tone he's been using since Mountain View:

“I'm not sure they'll have much in the way of gas as it is.”

And he thinks it can't get much worse, but then Sam glances back at him and carefully adds, “But I guess there's no harm in checking.”

He resists telling him to go fuck himself by the barest of margins. He settles for a glare, which Sam receives with baffled annoyance, and then slams his way out of the piece of shit Taurus they've been driving for the last four hundred miles.

Dean doesn't care if all they come away with is a single gallon. He needs a little time away from the confines of the car and away from his brother.

He stalks across the asphalt and swings into the station. Then he pauses in the doorway.

The days of stranger-in-the-saloon-door moments have made a big comeback in recent years in certain parts of the country. It's nothing but common courtesy that Dean gives the locals their five seconds to look him over. When the half-dozen people standing nearby glance away again, he continues inside and makes a beeline for the counter.

The older woman standing there isn't wearing a uniform, but she has an unquestionable air of belonging exactly where she is – in that moment; in life. She has a thick book of sudoku laid out in front of her on the counter, half-completed in ballsy blue ink.

“Sign at the road said you had gas,” he says, placing his hands flat on the counter for civility's sake.

The woman looks at him over her reading glasses and grabs a clipboard hanging a foot away. She glances down at it and says, “We got some in earlier this week. Limit's twenty gallons per person.” Her eyes flick over his shoulder and settle at a familiar height. She amends, “Per party.”

“We'll take it,” he says immediately.

“ _Dean_ ,” and oh Christ, but here goes Sam again. His brother puts on his fresh-faced college boy voice: “How much for that, ma'am?”

The number she gives them has price-gougers the country over getting a little hard without knowing why.

“We'll take ten gallons,” Sam says.

“Give us a discount on the twenty, and we'll fix the wards on your north corner,” Dean says, as if Sam hadn't spoken.

A pause, during which the woman sets the clipboard down on the counter and frowns at him, and Sam seethes. Dean swears he can feel it, the palpable bitch face radiating disapproval inches from his head.

“There's nothing wrong with the wards on our north corner,” the woman says, tone an unamused _nice try, kid_.

Without looking over, Dean says, “Sam?”

And Sam might be confused and irritated with him right now, but he's not about to withhold vital safety information from these people.

“There's an error in the Sanskrit,” he tells her. He'd remarked upon it when they first drove up, winding the car slowly through the maze of barricades and barbed iron wire that lay between the station and the highway. “It's a common enough mistake – people don't realize how far back they have to go, think they can get away with Nagari. I mean, it's pretty similar to the right script, but – ”

“But you know what they say,” Dean interrupts. “The devil's in the details.” He coughs lightly. “In this case, potentially literally.”

The woman looks between them, eyes narrow because, yeah, for all she knows they're blowing smoke up her ass and trying to tell her it's the good stuff. Eventually she points at Sam and says, “You talk with our resident ward guy. Gary should be outside, round the back by the garage. If he's satisfied you're not full of shit, then you've got yourself a deal.”

“Great,” Dean says. He smiles at her, and it's not even his jackass smile.

“Uh, could you please just – give us a second,” Sam says to her at the same time. Then he's hauling Dean around by the arm and whispering furiously, “We don't _need_ twenty gallons, Dean. Not at that price. And we don't have time to stick around here and mess with their wards.”

Dean says quietly, eyes flicking warily over the room, “Where we're going, we'll have plenty of time. And we'll need the twenty gallons.”

He tenses, broad shoulders twitching like tracking an incoming missile. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? What aren't you telling me? Dean – ”

“Sam,” he says through his teeth, temper fraying. “Do you think you could go talk to their ward guy and let me have maybe five minutes without you looming over my shoulder like the world's tallest buzzkill?”

And then, despite the harsh words, he makes himself look right at him. Wants him to know this isn't a dismissal, it's just – _god._ He just needs a break.

Sam keeps his expression neutral, but his face goes first white then red. He looks freshly struck. Slowly, he nods, and keeps nodding even as he backs up and nearly runs into the man standing behind him, who looks like he wants to snap _watch where you're going_ , but clearly changes his mind once he gets a second look at Sam's size.

“Close quarters getting to you boys?” the woman asks Dean right after, brow raised a little as she follows Sam's retreat with her eyes.

Dean cracks a grim grin. “You could say that.”

She looks back at him, debate clear on her face for a few seconds. Then she shrugs and points her ballpoint over his shoulder. “Well, wards should take a little bit. Bar's in the diner over there, through the door. Never was a family quarrel that got solved through alcohol, but Hon, don't let that stop you from trying.”

Dean is about to go do just that, but something makes him pause, turn back and ask, “How'd you know we were family?” They don't look anything alike, goes the refrain on down the flinching years. That she could tell now, so soon after – well. Dean's a little relieved, maybe.

The woman's back at her Sudoku; she waves her pen and says, not looking back up, “Boy, I recognize that brand of misery.”

* * *

Section command had sent his own team. What was left of them, anyway.

Hawthorne and Gene he'd only known for a few months. But a few months in the field is like years anyplace else (and who knows what that makes Connolly, who Dean's known since Basic, which is a bit like saying he's known since they were both in diapers).

Team isn't family but it's something close. People who are by your side day-in and day-out even when your actual family is a thousand miles away. People you eat with, fight with, fuck with and fuck around with – that's team. On quiet stretches you grow to hate the very sound of their breathing but you always know you'd take a fang to make sure they keep doing it. _That_ 's team.

And that's who they sent after Sam and Dean.

They got caught out in Tucson, which just figures. Cities are theoretically great for disappearing, but it's never worked out that way in Dean's own experience. It's a matter of familiarity and possession, and cities have never belonged to Dean the way the back roads of the continent's interior do.

Give him the slightest sliver of time, thirty seconds to get behind the wheel and turn the key, and he can disappear. The road will always swallow you up if you let it. Before the war, when they were still reeling from Lawrence, he thought that made them homeless. But Dean finds comfort in it these days, the road taking him and Sam back like lost sons.

In Tucson, Sam switched up cars while Dean got supplies, using the last of their emergency cash on water, food, and assorted ammo. He felt itchy about separating, but figured Sam was right – the quicker they got their respective jobs done, the sooner they'd be back on the road. And they wanted to be back on the road very, very soon.

But they weren't fast enough. Maybe it was Dean's fault for letting his guard down; Tucson is deep safe zone, the kind of place where people still dressed up as monsters for Halloween. Any Hunt Command vehicle would look as conspicuous and startling as an invasion straight out of _Red Dawn_.

He was gassing the truck up. Sam was in the driver's seat with a road map spread out over the steering wheel, updating the zone lines with a red pen and shaking his head in disagreement over how hot eastern Colorado had become. Dean had turned his head to tell him he was an idiot and instead locked eyes with Hawthorne driving slowly past the Sinclair station.

In the ensuing scramble, their truck was totaled, Sam probably slightly concussed, and Dean was winged in the right shoulder from where he'd been hanging out the passenger side to cover their exit.

As for his former team, he thinks Connolly and Hawthorne were bleeding but mobile, but Gene? Gene the Marine, who'd always been a little too eager to get in close quarters with the enemy, the gung ho fucker? Gene didn't make it. Bullet to the head, close range.

He'd had one hand in Sam's hair and the other holding a hunting knife. Dean hadn't even hesitated.

* * *

There is something reassuring about the sheer lack of a shit given by the people in the Flying J Iron Skillet. Unlike the front room, the people nursing drinks only give the most cursory of glances before looking away again.

Dean sets himself up at the bar, an old diner counter now covered liberally in bottles and the occasional empty bullet casing (a sack of salt sits next to the spare collection of top shelf liquors). The counter is the wrong height for leaning, so he takes a seat on one of the cracked vinyl stools. He orders a whiskey and a beer and pretends like he isn't taking mental notes on every other person in the room.

Two older men sit a few seats down from him. Broad shoulders, rough hands. Slow and relaxed as they lift their beers.

Over in the booth by the west window is a woman with an assortment of guns out on the table. She's cleaning them and speaking occasionally to the older of two kids (a girl and a boy, maybe 10 and 8, respectively; the boy is working on a coloring book and the girl is sorting bullets).

Two women, mid-thirties, with laptops in the corner, eyes intent on whatever they're reading. Great rack on the brunette.

A skinny boy of recruitment age at one of the tables in the middle of the room. Notebook open in front of him and stack of lore books at his elbow. He keeps sneaking peeks up at Dean.

Dean looks away, back at his drinks. He downs his whiskey and curls a hand loosely around the beer.

He swears he can still feel the absence of his tags with every shift of his torso, the empty space next to the amulet under his shirt feeling alien and too light. By the time they hit the New Mexico border, they'd two more close calls and it became clear that someone higher up must have cooked up a little spell. Tracking their dog tags, Sam figured. So they tossed them into the open bed of a passing truck, and there went any proof that the two of them were anything other than a pair of regular guys.

A regular guy. It's funny, he thinks he should be more comfortable than he is right now. These are the types of people he and Sam grew up around, after all – hard bitten, flannel and leather, quick with a bottle and and even quicker with a gun. But when he looks around, all his brain can see are civilians. Stubborn cranks who think all they need is salt and a plucky attitude. Dad has names for people like this. He mostly didn't use it, because it's not polite to insult the dead.

Dean bites his cheek and takes another drink of his beer. Catches the eye of the old man down near the register and signals for another shot.


	3. Chapter 3

_1999  
_ or  
_Year Two of the War_

When Dean formally tells his dad he's going to enlist, it doesn't exactly go the way he always envisioned. He'd pictured – he didn't know – a clap on the back, maybe, or his dad offering to buy him a drink. It's only a couple days after Dean and Sam narrowly escaped a horde of revenants outside Alliance, and Dean thinks he's still riding the adrenaline from the whole thing.

They are driving back from Lincoln to Caleb's cabin. John and Dean are alone in the car, because Sam had bitched about his injuries when they tried to prod him into coming along on the supply run.

John looks away from the road and pins him with a hard stare. “And why should we take you?”

The sincerity in the question is so kneecapping, Dean can't respond at first. It isn't the kind of question that invites an actual reply, anyway.

Abruptly, the old silence is thrown up between them like it never left, like Dean's still that fucked up kid who got nightmares and wet the bed at night, who couldn't stop shaking when left alone during the day. That creepy, too-serious one all the adults whispered about when they thought he couldn't hear.

Dean watches the world through the bug-spattered windshield, and he thinks.

He has disappointed John before, of course. But it's never once occurred to him that he could lose _the hunt_. It's the one thing outside taking care of his brother that gives his life definition. Dean without the hunt isn't just nonsensical, it's unthinkable – his mind goes blank when he tries to even picture it.

No sense in trying to argue, or protest innocence – he isn't innocent and he knows it. He fucked up by stopping in Alliance and nearly got Sam killed. Of course John wouldn't be impressed right now to hear he wanted to enlist.

Dean finds his voice again and makes sure it feels normal in his throat before trying it out. He asks what he needs to do to prove himself.

And as if he's been waiting for the question, John pulls the car over to the side of the empty two-lane road and tells him to get out. Dean obeys, and watches closely as John gets out as well and rounds the front of the car.

He leans in through the open passenger window and grabs Dean's backpack up from the footwell. He shakes it once, testing, and reaches in to pull out its contents – a battered paperback, an auto magazine, his wallet and sunglasses, a half-eaten packet of black pepper jerky, a bowie knife, a 9mm and its extra clip, and his canteen. John tosses everything onto the passenger seat.

He turns to Dean, the sun at his back and shining over his shoulder, making it impossible to read his expression. “Pick one,” is what he says.

Dean looks down at the passenger seat. He tries to remember how much water was left in the canteen. It's hot out, not a cloud in the sky, and while this part of Nebraska has plenty of tree cover, it's nothing Dean wants to trust while out on his own.

Sam would probably pick the paperback. And when John inevitably wanted to know why he'd go and pick such a stupid thing, he'd tell him _because fuck you, that's why_.

Then again, Sam would never find himself in this position.

Dean reaches through the window and picks up the 9mm. He swipes the extra clip as well, gaze sliding across John's in a not-quite challenge. John doesn't comment, however. He holds the backpack open for Dean to place the gun inside and then extends the whole thing out to him.

Dean's hand closes on the straps, but John doesn't immediately let go. He waits for Dean to meet his eyes, and then he says evenly:

“I'll see you back at Caleb's. If you don't make it back by sunset, you're out. If you get a ride, you're out. Do you have your mobile?”

Without thinking too much about it, Dean digs into the front pocket of his jeans and produces the phone. He hands it silently over to John, who glances at it. Then, to Dean's slight surprise, he hands it right back.

“If you find yourself in any trouble, I want you to call immediately. I don't care if you think you can handle the freak on your own – you call.”

“Will be I out then, too, Sir?” Dean asks neutrally.

John looks at him for a long moment, but it's not the cold, disappointed look he's been turning his way for the past couple days. It's sharp and thoughtful, like Dean's said something unexpected.

“You know what I've been doing all this time, right?” is what he finally asks. “Every time I go away and leave you boys?”

Dean hesitates but nods. “You're building Hunt Command.” His throat hurts like grief, like he's already lost it.

“Right. But what we're really trying to do is build a new kind of hunter.” He looks away, eyes scanning the road and fields, like it's easier to talk to Dean when he isn't looking right at him. “All of this, the whole point is so you and your brother won't have to do it the way I did – fumbling through the dark alone or trying to figure out if you can trust the latest stranger. When you join up, I want you to always have a team to rely on.”

John looks back at him and almost smiles. “So no, Dean,” he says quietly, “You won't be out if you call for backup.”

He reaches over and clasps Dean's shoulder. Despite the fingers pinching a little where he grips too hard, the weight is familiar and comfortable. Dean can't help but feel a little steadier, even under the hot glare of the sun and with the long stretch of asphalt stretching out over John's shoulder before him.

John packs himself back into the Impala and drives off, leaving Dean with over twenty miles to cover and a scant five hours to do it.

He starts walking immediately. He has no time to waste and can always have a minor breakdown while moving, no problem. Dean's good at multitasking.

At first, the walk is soundtracked by breathing much harsher than his easy pace calls for. The sun wheels overhead, solitary and wrathful. It's in his eyes, but at least that means he doesn't have to watch his own shadow lengthen in front of him.

He walks past two unmarked gravel crossroads before coming up on a road sign for a county highway he recognizes. Thank fuck. He knows where he is, and how to get to Caleb's.

Dean scrubs at his face and takes a couple deep breaths. He clips the straps of his pack together across his chest and sets off in a measured jog. It's not a pace he'll be able to keep up for long, but he needs to take advantage of the easy road surface while he can. In his head is a map of the area, and there are several sections of rec land and open fields he thinks he can cut across to eat up some of the distance.

It's easier than it should be to not think, to focus on staying alert to his surroundings for stray freaks or monitoring his physical state for warning signs of heat stroke or dehydration. He doesn't think about his dad or the possibility of rejection, of what he'll do if he has to watch his brother and father continue on without him.

There's knowledge one can only get from experience, he knows – knowledge about how much one's body can take, how hard or far one can push it. Which types of pain and discomfort can be ignored and which need to be attended. The hardest part of a hike like this isn't the exertion, it's the mental discipline required to not lose one's shit at the idea of all that still lies ahead.

Looking back, most of the day won't be a clear memory in his head. He'll remember the encroaching thirst and the pain that ran up his calves, the way his knees felt like they belonged to an arthritic senior citizen. Only one actual image will stay with him.

It happens a couple hours in, when he finally crosses the tiny bridge he'd been hoping wasn't an error in his memory.

He scrambles down the embankment, left hand scraping raw against the rough concrete and eyes locked on the meagre creek below. He's splashing over the pebbles before he looks up and notices the cows – more relevantly, the cow pies covering both sides of the creek.

For a long moment, he doesn't move except to sway slightly.

Giardia is nasty business. They knew an old hunter who caught it while stalking a white stag along the Continental Divide in Colorado a couple years back. Man had been a hunter for thirty years, but in the end he was forced to retire because of something as primitive as compromised gut flora. Dean would've thought it was a joke if he hadn't seen for himself the way the guy could barely get out of bed some mornings.

One of the massive brown cows loitering under the shade of the bridge swishes its tail and stares at him. A fat deerfly crawls down over its large forehead and crosses its black eye but the animal doesn't blink. And for some reason this is what Dean will remember – the terrible dry heat of his throat and the silent gaze of that dumb animal victoriously standing in water he couldn't drink.

It's harder than it should be to force himself back up to the road. The water had looked clear and cold. He imagines he can still hear the trickle of it as he walks away, and every step seems to require twice as much energy as the preceding one had. It becomes impossible to think of anything but the thirst. He flashes once, briefly and shamefully, on the phone in his backpack. Afterwards he almost chucks it into a ditch to kill the temptation.

He's not that weak, and it's not like he's in any real danger. Discomfort is not danger. Maybe this is the lesson John intended: anyone can be in shape but most are never in control.

The sun is dangerously low in the sky by the time he emerges back onto the county road that leads straight to the turnoff for Caleb's cabin. He's aching all over and he has what feels like a blister the size of a Kennedy on his right heel. He hasn't pissed since the morning and he's pretty sure if he cried, his body wouldn't be able to produce any tears.

He's a quarter-mile out and not sure he isn't imagining things when he sees the figure waiting for him. All he can make out is a slumped over shadow against the overgrown milkweed that frame Caleb's driveway, but it doesn't matter, because he knows it's Sam.

Even if he was delirious and imagining things, it would still be Sam.

He's sitting on a green cooler, head in hand and elbow on knee, but he springs to his feet as soon as he spots Dean making his slow, hitching way up the road. Sam turns around and digs into the cooler, comes up with something clutched in his hand. He closes the space between them with enviable speed and hands Dean a cold bottle of water. It's dripping wet from sitting on melting ice for who-knows-how-many hours.

Dean could kiss the kid, really.

“He wouldn't tell me where he dropped you off, or what direction you'd be coming from,” Sam says.

He steps up to Dean's side and turns his body so it's parallel, ducking down to slip under his arm. He does it easily, and for once Dean is glad for the kid's freakish growth spurt. He unconsciously hitches a little closer, and Sam automatically adjusts his hold so he can better support his weight.

“You hurt?” he asks Dean anxiously.

Dean shakes his head but doesn't answer until after he's downed half the bottle. It takes a herculean effort to stop drinking, but he knows if he's not careful, he'll end up sick all night. When he does manage to detach his mouth from the bottle, he rasps, “Blister, is all.”

In the deepening twilight, Sam's eyes are dark and indistinct. They rove over Dean's face, no doubt taking in the cracked lips and the burn he can feel drawing the skin tight over his nose and cheeks.

Wearily, Dean jerks his head towards the driveway, because he still hasn't technically made it back yet.

They begin shuffling forward.

“The man's a fucking hypocrite,” Sam says after a few seconds, the words coming out fast and angry, but low, like he's paranoid he might be overheard even out here where there's no one but Dean and the crickets.

He continues bitching, and Dean just lets his familiar voice wash over him, too exhausted to reply or make his customary defenses. His limbs are clumsy and heavy. An ominous ache has taken up residence along the exterior line of his legs. It'll be a miracle if he makes it through the night without something seizing up.

Sam's tone starts to go a little feeble. He's not used to Dean letting him rant unchallenged and clearly doesn't know what to do with the newfound freedom. “It's just – he's constantly telling us off for being reckless, and then he throws you out there alone?”

He has matched Dean's pace and gait easily and without too much evident thought. Something about this smooth transition in his affairs has Dean thinking about what John said and how it felt to see Sam waiting there for him. It's probably the exhaustion, but he's a little fascinated how the easy stretch of his brother's body compensates so completely for his own current unsteadiness. When did that happen?

“Wasn't alone, Sam,” he says at last, squeezing his brother close, like he can transmit his meaning through touch. “Maybe wasn't close by. But I wasn't alone.”

* * *

 _2006  
_ or  
_Year Nine of the War_

Dean drinks and eyes the darkening sky outside and drinks and almost gets into a fight.

It's not like he hadn't been paying attention; he always pays attention. But maybe he's on high alert for freaks and other hunters and sometimes forgets that a bad-tempered civilian who thinks they know their way around a weapon can be just as dangerous.

And he didn't go looking for it. Bar fights are for kids, and he hasn't been in one that didn't have an ulterior purpose since he was seventeen. In fact, it's been a long time since he was even in a bar, period. Even a janky makeshift bar housed in the ruins of a gas station buffet.

Rolling his most recent beer between his palms, he tries to remember the time before this. Definitely not Modesto – the USHC burned off the community's good will before they could take advantage of any local watering holes. Dean had been too distracted taking care of a grieving, newly-enlisted Sam to really think about it at the time.

Had to be New Orleans then. Bourbon Street before the hurricane turned the city into a prime dining for ghouls with a taste for brine. He and Connelly were already bored with the posting; they'd went down there expecting voodoo wars and ended up playing glorified guard duty. So they visited a few bars, now and then.

Anyway, the fight-that-wasn't goes down like this:

“You're one of the guys taking the last of our gas?”

Dean barely glances up at the five-eleven good old boy who's come up alongside his stool. He lifts his beer and drains a fair portion of the bottle. He says, “This place doesn't strike me as the kind that would sell the last of their gas.”

“And I didn't see you flashing any money.” Good Old Boy braces his shoulders in a way he must think is threatening, but really just telegraphs a recent rotator cuff injury.

Dean sighs and knuckles some grit from his eye. “Look pal, we paid more than a fair price. You have problems with it, take it up with the lady running the front.” She'd eat the guy alive, Dean is pretty sure.

“Think I want to take it up with you.”

Then he's got a knife out and for a second, Dean is so honestly surprised, he could actually laugh.

The man doesn't seem drunk, so this belligerence is coming from somewhere else. He's staring down at Dean with his close-set, watery blue eyes and seems very sincerely pissed. The knife is old but well-oiled and probably longer than the guy's dick.

Dean has a few choices here. He can try to defuse the situation – armed dumbasses aren't _that_ far outside his wheelhouse. Or he could give the guy exactly what he is asking for, which is to feel alive for a few minutes today.

“Well shit,” Dean says to the counter. He sets his beer down and stands up and hey, here's his sidearm. “I didn't think to bring my knife.”

Wood scrapes against the tiled floor all around as almost everyone in the bar gets to their feet and pulls out their own weapon – guns, because the rest of them are apparently smarter than this douchebag. None of them look too thrilled about the situation, but Dean notices their resignation isn't tainting their aim any.

A thought swims forward: if something like this happened back when he was seventeen and really into Westerns, he probably would've died from the excitement. Now, he's watching the kids in the booth by the window duck under the table while their mother shifts to stand in front of it, and he just feels a little sick.

“Think I'll manage,” the man tells him smugly.

This moron _is_ thinking Western, so Dean obliges him by smiling slowly. After a few seconds the man's eyebrows start to pinch together, finally a little uncertain.

Gene had close-set blue eyes. Dean hadn't even hesitated.

“Get a few more,” Dean says, gun arm very steady. “And then maybe we'll have an even match here.”

He had been sitting at the end of the counter, automatically situated to keep an eye on the rest of the room while close enough to the door to hear any newcomers. It's this, and the way his new buddy's eyes flicker over his shoulder, that warn him about the two sets of feet coming up behind him.

One of them belongs to Sam. The sound of his voice is familiar but jarring, like an alarm clock one might yank from the wall first thing every morning.

“Dean,” he says, tone easy, easy like _what the fuck is wrong with you_. “I see you're making friends.”

“Daniel,” barks Sam's companion. “What in the hell do you think you're doing? We've talked about this.”

And Dean says, “You know me, Sam. I'm a friendly guy.”

While Daniel says, “You talked about it. I never agreed.”

And no one in the room lowers their weapons.

He keeps his eyes on Daniel. Sure, the man doesn't have a gun, but he's the main aggressor, and Dean can't rule out him being dumb enough to lunge forward.

Daniel shifts on his feet, finally maybe discomfited by all the attention. His eyes dart between Dean and Sam.

A familiar drumbeat explodes over the room, crackling through a pair of speakers sitting up in the ceiling corners. And although no one had been exactly moving before, the shift to going to attention is unmistakable.

“ _On the floors of Tokyo, a-down in London town's a go go..._ ”

Dean's eyebrows rise. “Really?”

He is roundly ignored as everyone starts moving at the same time in the next second.

The man who'd entered with Sam shouts for eyes on the outside cameras. The mother by the window booth drags her unresisting kids out from under the table and begins ushering them towards the door to the kitchen. Daniel scowls at Sam and Dean but pockets his knife and jogs past them without another word.

“That went well,” says Dean to no one in particular. Sam takes advantage of the clamor and hauls him backwards out of the bar.

The main room of the plaza is even busier, people running back and forth across the linoleum. Some are carrying jugs of water or food. All are carrying guns.

“It's their warning system,” Sam says, and there's a strange moment where they both obviously feel the instinct to stop and find out more, to see if they can help. Then the moment passes and they're through the door and standing outside under a sky gone unnaturally dark.

Dean shrugs roughly out of Sam's hold as soon as they're clear of the building. He eyes the brooding clouds, thinking about spelled squalls and what might have tripped the plaza's wards.

“What the hell was that, Dean?” Sam demands at his back.

“What was what?” He reaches the Taurus and opens the driver door, but Sam gets him by the upper arm again and drags him around. Dean lets him, this time.

“Why did I just walk in on you facing down an entire room full of survivalist nut jobs? I know you know how to act around civilians. I've been out on undercover ops with you.”

The thing is, Dean's not entirely unsympathetic here. He knows what he must be thinking he saw back in the bar.

But those last words harden him.

He looks at Sam, standing there in a hoodie and jeans like he'd never spent a day of his life in uniform. He thinks: _we're not undercover now._ _We're just us._

Sam stares back at him. His hair is whipping around in the rising wind, threatening to fall into eyes that have gone imploring. Dean doesn't say anything. He looks away and follows the motion with a full body turn. He ducks down behind the wheel of the car, slamming the door shut.

His own breathing is loud alone inside the car. He watches through the streaky, rain-spattered windshield as Sam throws his hands up in frustration and wheels around in tight half-circle. But there's nothing Dean can do about it. It's like the part of him that knew how to manage soldiers has gone still and silent.

A few rain drops make an appearance on the windshield, and this apparently convinces Sam to get a move on. He opens the passenger door and climbs in, face tight with anger. He doesn't look directly at Dean.

Upside: for the first time in days, he finally looks something other than nauseatingly deferential. Dean doesn't feel as relieved as he thought he would. Go figure.

He puts the key in the ignition and starts the car, the sound making him miss the Impala just like every time he has to drive a different vehicle. He puts the car into drive and checks the dashboard; he falters; he closes his eyes.

Dean can hear the wind howling outside, the shitty music alarm still blaring out inside the plaza from across the parking lot and, much closer, the shift of the beat-to-hell seat cushion to his right as Sam double-checks his pockets and the floor at his feet for gear, making sure they have everything they need.

Which they don't.

“We can't go,” he says.

“What?” Sam raises his head, eyes narrowed in irritation. “Why not?”

“Did you get the gas promised us?” he asks. Needless, because he knows the answer.

“No, but Dean – look, we still have a quarter tank, that's enough to get us to the next town. And it's not like we really paid for it.”

Dean doesn't let himself get sidetracked by that whole argument again.

“We _need_ that gas, Sam.” He looks over at him, meeting his eyes. “There won't be a next town. Not where we're going.”

For a few seconds, Sam doesn't get it. Dean sees the second he does, how his frustrated confusion sort of glitches and experiences system failure and then Sam looks out the windshield, over to the former interstate.

Eastbound.

“You're kidding,” he says after a moment. He's shocked enough that his voice comes out almost normal. “Tell me you're fucking with me, Dean.”

He says steadily, “'Fraid I can't do that, tiger.”

Sam's eyes shift sightless over the horizon. He's thinking hard, and Dean could probably account for most of what's running through his mind right now.

What little they know of dead zones comes from drones and less-than-reliable reports from the occasional gibbering civilian who manages to find their way out of one. Dean figures there are probably more survivors out there, but the hard-bitten old school hunter types that could make it wouldn't be exactly eager to sit down for an interview with the government.

Here's what is generally known about dead zones:

The barrier to Purgatory is weaker. No one knows why. The time difference between a freak dying and crossing back over is near nonexistent. No one knows how to stop it.

The USHC doesn't even waste time anymore, just pulls out of any region that gets zoned. They tell the public they're conserving resources and being strategic, but the simple truth is there's no winning a fight when the other side has infinite numbers.

When one finds oneself on the run from the USHC, the smartest move is to go where they won't. Dean's still trying to convince himself it's a good plan, rather than the only one he's got.

Sam must know it too, because all he eventually says is: “Twenty gallons won't even get us all the way through Texas. It's gotta be almost 800 miles to the zone border at Lafayette.”

“We'll have to scrounge, yeah.”

“ _Scrounge_ ,” breathes Sam. “In a dead zone. You've lost your mind.”

“The USHC,” he begins, but Sam's not done.

“No, Dean, you've lost _your_ _fucking_ _mind_. I can't tell if this is you suicidal, if this is about Dad – ”

“This has nothing to do with Dad,” he says sharply. The words come out loud in the small space of the car, and he can see how it brings Sam up short in surprise. He rubs his eyes and mutters, “Jesus fucking Christ.”

After an awkward silence, Sam sighs and says, resigned, “Okay. Let's go get the gas.”

The rain has started really coming down outside now, drumming heavily on the car. Dean doesn't like the faint green cast it takes on where it's bouncing off the aluminum roof of the plaza. They'll have to trust that the broad-spectrum protections in their service tattoos will be enough.

They both slam out of the car, drag their jackets over their heads, and sprint for the door.

They enter the plaza and find the front room deserted.


End file.
